Shanghai: A Living Design Destination
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“When creativity spills beyond exhibition halls into our streets, cafés and riverbanks, that’s when design truly lives. This is our invitation to reimagine Shanghai not just as a backdrop, but as an active collaborator in the story of design.” Zhuo Tan, Event Director, Design Shanghai
Design Shanghai, Asia’s leading international design event, announces its 13th edition, taking place 19–22 March 2026 at the historic Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Returning to its birthplace after six years, the fair will debut an enhanced programme and elevated visitor experience, showcasing the most innovative and forward-thinking design emerging from Asia.
Extending beyond the exhibition halls, Design Shanghai will once again transform the city through its Design in the City programme (5–22 March). Across the two weeks surrounding the fair, Shanghai becomes a living design destination, a citywide celebration where exhibition, installation, hospitality and culture converge to showcase the energy and future of Asian design.
Building on successful initiatives, including the Design Shanghai @Xintiandi Design Festival (launched in 2017, delivering more than 200 installations) and the City Design Guide (first launched in 2020 and expanded in 2025), Design in the City celebrates Shanghai’s dynamic design culture.
In 2026, Design in the City expands across four curated design districts. The strategic citywide initiative activates Shanghai’s creative landscape through over 60–70 design hotspots, more than 20 public design events, and — new for 2026 — 15 open studio days inviting the public inside working design spaces.
Courtesy of Liang in Xuhui District [Design in the City 2026]
At the heart of Design in the City is the City Design Guide, a curated resource celebrating Shanghai’s most inspiring creative destinations. Participating venues span galleries, studios, brand showrooms, lifestyle retailers, cafés, hotels and entertainment spaces — each offering a distinct perspective on contemporary design. From hospitality spaces where design shapes atmosphere and conversation, to retail environments that transform shopping into immersive storytelling, visitors experience how design influences everyday life. Boutique hotels act as living laboratories of modern lifestyle, while galleries and cultural institutions foster dialogue between design, art and society.
Courtesy of Studio 9 [Design in the City 2026]
Four leading designers and cultural insiders guide visitors through the creative identity of each district:
CHANG NING - DESIGN FOR TOMORROW
Changning District reveals a quieter layer of Shanghai, where historic residential streets and everyday neighborhood life define its character. As Sheen Tao, Partner at Yatofu, observes, “Changning feels like an unembellished, flourishing forest—full of life, subtle surprises, and inexhaustible inspiration… you never know what scene, person, or detail will appear next.” Rooted along Yuyuan Road, late-Qing façades, wrought-iron details, and former homes of cultural figures form the district’s historical canopy, while small independent shops, cafés, and sustainability-focused design spaces grow alongside long-standing local businesses. Nearby destinations like Columbia Circle and Tsutaya Books further anchor Changning as a place where history, community life, and environmentally conscious creativity naturally converge.
TRACERIES
KAINOS Café @ Park Dimanche, No.1221 Yan’an West Road, Changning District
This exhibition explores the idea of “Reality Kicking Back” – how the physical world leaves traces, scratches, and shadows that challenge our digital perceptions. The exhibition invites audiences into a space of “visual persistence,” revealing how real-world marks hold personal and emotional meaning. Featuring six creators—an architect, programmer, photographer, designer, DJ, and new media artist – who set aside their usual identities, TRACERIES transforms PARK DIMANCHE into a community space of authentic connection, turning disappearance into presence.
DONGLIANG
NO.188, Wuyi Road, Chang Ning District
DONGLIANG, a pioneer in independent designer retail, began as a Beijing concept boutique in 2009 dedicated to local talent. It has since grown into a global multi-brand platform, bridging emerging creators with international luxury and premium houses. Serving as a vital conduit between designers and consumers, it sustains the essence of design across generations, ensuring sartorial excellence endures.
Other unmissable experiences include Qishan Teahouse, where vessels, tea, and mountain origins create moments of harmony. Harvestyle (No. 102-1, Lane 363, Fahuazhen Road) presents handmade gifts, craft collections, and mini exhibitions rooted in local stories. Additionally, ShanYe Art Gallery in Columbia Circle, established in April 2025, offers a wonderful dialogue between contemporary art and design. Tǎng (No. 141, Tai’an Road) hosts ethno-fusion music, workshops, and creative collaborations. Barque (No. 2 Building, No. 1221 West Yan An Road) offers Spanish tapas, seafood, and curated wines in a ship-inspired setting. Changning’s coffee and bakery scene features CUBIC THREE for specialty coffee, P Café as a creative retreat, coffea SHED for agriculture-rooted interactions, and NOW Bakery with Yunnan-inspired breads and desserts. “Neo-Intelligence” Exhibition (No. 1882 Yanan West Road, F&D Gallery, until March 22) by Donghua University explores sustainable, tech-driven fashion as a Design Shanghai 2026 partner.
Courtesy of ShanYe Art Gallery [Design in the City 2026]
HUANGPU – “DESIGN THROUGH TIME”
Huangpu District anchors Shanghai’s historic and cultural core, where the city’s origins meet its modern pulse. As Roger Qian, Founder & Managing Director of JYQ Experience, notes, "Shanghai has always openly embraced new influences. As the birthplace of Shanghai-style culture, Huangpu reflects the city's evolution. The Bund's grand, historic buildings facing Pudong's modern glass skyscrapers create a subtle tension between past and present, a contrast that constantly inspires new design interpretations." Here, Art Deco landmarks, colonial façades, and skyscrapers layer along the Bund, while Fuzhou Road’s literary legacy and spaces around Fuxing Park and Suzhou Creek sustain a dynamic dialogue between heritage and contemporary creativity.
SHANG XIA
Wander Through Wonder | 15th Anniversary Special Exhibition
[2025.10.31 -2026.03.31, NO. 233 Middle Huaihai Road, Huangpu District]
To celebrate its fifteenth anniversary, SHANG XIA presents Wander Through Wonder at SHANG XIA Maison. Returning to the essence of design, the exhibition invites visitors to rediscover the harmony between hand and material through the brand’s signature crafts — eggshell lacquer, bamboo marquetry, and Xipi lacquer. Showcasing masterpieces collected by leading museums worldwide, it traces a poetic journey through fifteen years of Eastern aesthetics and timeless craftsmanship.
RICOSTRU:Reconstructing the Ancient Path｜From Milan to Shanghai
1F, Somekh Building, No.190 Beijing East Road, Huangpu District
Founded in 2011 by Rico Manchit Au, RICOSTRU (Italian for "reconstruction") blends oriental minimalism with futurism, utilizing geometric forms, advanced materials, and translucent hues. Supported by Giorgio Armani, the brand debuted at Milan Fashion Week in 2016. To celebrate its Shanghai Bund flagship opening, RICOSTRU presents “Reconstructing the Ancient Path, From Milan to Shanghai.” The collection draws inspiration from the historic Tea Horse Road, translating its architecture and landscapes into sculptural forms using hand-dyed Yunnan leather and metallic florals to link ancient craft with contemporary design.
Unmissable hot spots include Baixin Bookstore (No. 620 Fuzhou Road, Huangpu District), a 1912 publishing landmark reborn in 2024 as a cultural hub blending books, music, talks, exhibitions, and a café—rooted always in the written word. Nuwilds (Unit D-L258, 2/F, Building D, Xintiandi East Taoli, No. 111 Ji’an Road) channels nature and Chinese heritage into evocative fragrances from its January 2026 flagship. Molteni&Co (B3-B, No. 19 Wangda Road) has delivered Italian design mastery since 1934, from iconic pieces to tailored interiors shaped by enduring craftsmanship. SING CHAN (Room 817, 8/F, Chuangye Building, 33 Sichuan Middle Road) bridges cultures through lighting and spatial design in its 2025 Bund space. Zhu Di’s Stillness Found Here photography exhibition (RICOSTRU Passage, Room 410, No. 33 Middle Sichuan Road) captures landscapes as philosophical voids where human traces meet nature’s enduring silence.
Courtesy of Baixin Books [Design in the City 2026]
JING’AN– “THE SOCIAL DESIGN CIRCUIT”
Jing’an District reveals a more understated side of Shanghai’s urban rhythm. As Deyang Wang, Founder & Designer of W SELECT DESIGN, reflects, “As a designer and F&B operator, I often consider ‘design de-escalation.’ True design challenges us to strip away excess, sensitively responding to commerce and everyday life with effortless authenticity. I urge designers and enthusiasts to explore, observe, and see how design can gracefully return to life itself.” Plane-tree-lined streets, historic lanes, and independent businesses define its character, with creative clusters like JùfúCháng blending cafés, studios, and street culture into daily neighborhood life.
Pillars Gallery
108 & 202, Guang’er Warehouse No. 195 Guangfu Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai
Pillars Gallery, founded in 2025, occupies a space along Suzhou Creek within Shanghai’s historic Guang’er Warehouse. Named after the symbolic “Pillar” of Dongliang culture—and echoing the venue’s column-filled interior—the gallery evokes foundation, support, connection, and extension. It unfolds a deliberate narrative of culture and beauty, where each artwork emerges from artists’ deep engagement with materials and daily life, shaped by craft and time into objects alive with human warmth.
Quest for Urban Signals
Central Lawn, Yongyuan Road, Jing’an District
Artist Shuare Shizhu, from Sichuan’s Daliang Mountains, embarks on an art residency in Shanghai, bringing the instincts of the wilderness into dialogue with the urban landscape. Using paint, the body, and mixed media, he maps the “folds of nature” onto the city’s concrete fabric through collaborations with iconic Shanghai spaces. His residency will culminate in a large-scale public painting performance at a city landmark, later exhibited at the Shanghai Exhibition Center on the opening day of Design Shanghai.
Key highlights include Sòf Garden (No. 851 Julu Road, Jing’an District), a garden restaurant for unhurried coffee and conversation. Sandriver (Building W17, No. 201 North Maoming Road) offers slow-luxury cashmere from Inner Mongolia and Tibet, blending heritage with modern design. Studio 9 (No. 55 Yuyao Road) showcases Danish icons HAY, &Tradition, and Verpan for contemporary interiors.
Courtesy of Sòf Gardens [Design in the City 2026]
XUHUI – CREATIVE CONVERGENCE
Xuhui District offers a quieter rhythm against Shanghai’s urban pulse, defined by tree-lined streets, red-brick architecture, and residential calm. As Yaotian Zhang, Founder of Fun Connection, observes, “Xuhui’s creative core remains as vital as ever. Carefully renovated historic architectures, ceramic studios experimenting with parametric design, VR art spaces hidden behind record shops, and small galleries showcasing emerging talents all point to the same truth: the heart of this neighborhood is still beating—steadily, vibrantly, and with remarkable vitality.” Anfu Road’s cultural corridor anchors a scene where restored buildings host studios, galleries, and experimental spaces woven into neighborhood markets, pocket parks, and everyday street life.
WS SPACE
No. 1298 Huaihai Middle Road, Xuhui District
Wu Bin’s Living Aesthetics Retail Complex—founded by the renowned designer and W.DESIGN creator—blends design, art, and lifestyle into a new retail destination. Observing contemporary life as its foundation, the space harnesses art and design’s allure to fulfill modern desires for beauty, spirit, and experience. It offers holistic visions and proposals for elevated, meaningful living.
LIANG
No.1, Lane 210, Wuyuan Road, Xuhui District
LIANG, founded in Beijing in 2019, is an original design brand reviving the spirit and ritual of objects in daily life. “Liang” evokes the joyful, flocking oriole bird, paired with “Mu,” the resilient Chinese parasol tree. Through product lines spanning Eat, Drink, Savor, View, Repose, Sip, and Scent (forthcoming), Liangmu enriches contemporary Chinese living with an oriental sensibility—transforming objects from possessions into lifelong companions.
Xu hui will also host numerous studio open days, offering rare glimpses into creative workspaces. Highlights include HATCH Architects (RIBA-qualified, delivering innovative, sustainable designs), Ippolito Fleitz Group (Shanghai outpost of the award-winning “Identity Architects,” blending architecture, branding, and over 400 global honors), and anySCALE Architecture Design (bridging East-West aesthetics across Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Mallorca with Red Dot and Iconic Award-winning projects). Additional unmissable highlights include Banlan’s stunning furniture showroom lead by designers Han Yi (China) and John Pawson (UK) (Room 108, Building 5, No. 8, Hengshan Road, Jinhe Yuejie, Xuhui District) as well as HIDEMI (No. 132 Yanqing Road), where garments rooted in “never too far from life” become emotional vessels for contemporary women. Ovary (No. 291 Fumin Road) is an interdisciplinary creative space that bridges art and botany through immersive installations, performances, and sensory workshops, inviting visitors into contemplative exchange. Moooi (No. 1331 Fuxing Middle Road) immerses visitors in Dutch design within the historic Blackstone Building. 75 Boutique Vintage (Lane 76, Wuyuan Road) reimagines global Art de la Table pieces for tactile modern rituals.
Courtesy of Ovary [Design in the City 2026]
To explore the complete Design in the City Guide click HERE.